


Gold Beneath the Sea

by athena_crikey



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, M/M, Mermen, Romance, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-31 09:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6464764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I told you I am no man. But I was, once. More than a man, one of your own kind. A lieutenant, in His Majesty’s Royal Navy.” Merman fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is so old it's dusty, but I've been pushing to finish old fics and it got sucked up by my enthusiasm.

The storms at the equator are sudden and fierce, blowing in without warning from blue skies to rend cord and rip canvas from masts. The old hands tell Hornblower that these squalls are nothing compared to the weather at the capes, but Hornblower has never been to the capes. This fickle sea is the worst he has ever known. 

His stomach, thankfully, has grown used to the ship’s bucking and heaving even in the harshest storms. But after more than three years in the Navy, he is still painfully aware of his physical awkwardness. He is no natural top-man and never will be; he is hard pressed to keep his balance on the deck during high seas. On those occasions when he mounts into the rigging, it is not skill but cold determination alone that supports him. 

Fortunately, as the sole lieutenant in a sloop of war, Hornblower isn’t often called to mount into the rigging. He spends his days on watch or charting the ship’s passage southwards through the Atlantic, hugging close to the African coast to spy in at the Spanish and Portuguese ports along the way. The rare times he does climb topwards, the sun is shining and the breeze is generally negligible. The captain, a middle-aged Devonshire native with a soft burr, is a kindly man and well aware of his young lieutenant’s two left feet, and does not send him into the tops. Hornblower, although painfully shamed by his ineptness, is not foolish enough to risk his neck for bravado’s sake. He keeps to the deck when the seas are high if possible. But a sailor’s life is never his own, and the one time its conservation is entirely beyond his control is when the ship is in danger. 

They are nearing the equator itself when a sudden storm whips up from nowhere, blue sky devoured by black clouds in a manner of minutes. The men race aloft to the tune of frantic whistles to take in the sails before they can be torn from the masts, running up the ratlines like monkeys. They are no crack ship, and the storm is racing down on them hard even as the men reach the yards. 

Hornblower stands on the deck in his worn jacket bellowing orders; there is no time to dress for the weather. A sudden shift in the wind nearly takes his hat from him, and he has to clamp it down hard over his brow to keep it on. And then from up high, a wailing voice screams down a warning that freezes the blood of every man aboard. 

“Shoals! Shoals to starboard!”

As one, all men on deck turn to peer over the starboard bow, but the sun has been blacked out and the sea is charcoal grey tipped with white spray. Between that and the sudden rain enveloping them in a thick veil, there is no distinguishing the breakers from waves from their low vantage point. 

The captain raises his voice to demand where away, but there is no chance of being heard above the screaming wind. Hornblower, close to the port ratline, sets his jaw and heaves himself onto the wet cord to scramble upwards. 

He makes it to the yard, wind ripping under his jacket and trying to strip him away from the ship. There is a flash of lightning and almost instantaneously the boom of thunder, and the rain drives down into his face like knives. Hornblower has an image of the topmen pointing to something and shouting, but at that point several things happen. 

Hornblower reaches for the next handhold, thinly-soled shoes slipping beneath him. The wind changes and the ship gives an almighty bucking heave. And a wall of rain slams into him from the side, catching him off balance.

Hornblower’s soaked fingers slide over the slick cord even as all his weight and momentum pulls him away from it. All he can think is that he must must _must_ hang on. And then the tips of his fingers are slipping over the cord, and he is falling. 

He tumbles away from the yard, away from the men staring down after him in shock, with his hands outstretched as though he could still catch hold of the ropes. As though he could still save himself. As though any instant now, he won’t – 

Hornblower hits the waves hard on his back. The impact drives all the breath from his body and most of the sense as well. The warm water soaks through to his skin instantly, the sudden sodden weight of his clothes dragging him downwards, while the waves toss him to and fro like a cat’s plaything. Hornblower struggles to keep his head above water, fighting the pounding waves frantically. The spray is blinding, water pouring down his throat choking him while the salt makes him retch and gag. He has no thoughts of rescue, of the ship or his comrades. All he knows is the absolute need to keep breathing. 

Hornblower is no swimmer, and is not particularly fit. He is exhausted after only a few minutes of fighting the roaring waves, unable to see or hear and hardly able to pull in a breath without salt water flooding into his nose and mouth. The flashing lightning shows no sign of the ship’s silhouette against the dark sky, or any hint of land. Hornblower kicks his way over the crest of a wave, and then sinks below the next one with burning lungs.

There is hardly any room at all for thought. Only furious denial – this cannot _cannot_ be happening – and self-recrimination – how could he have been so stupid, so foolish, such an utterly useless swab as to let this happen?

Hornblower makes it above the waves to suck in one last breath, full of spray and stinging salt, and then the current pulls him under again. As thought fades, he barely notices a pair of arms slipping about his chest.

  
***

Hornblower wakes feeling like he’s inhaled a glass of brandy. His lungs burn with each breath, and his head aches phenomenally. Besides that, he is physically very uncomfortable. His torso and legs are cramped up, his clothes itchy and damp, and there is sand in his eyes and mouth. It feels as though it has been rubbed down even into the tiny cracks in his skin, lodged in beneath his fingernails and in the curves of his ears.

Hornblower spits and opens his eyes, rolling unsteadily onto his knees and elbows to cough painfully. As his head begins to clear, he can hear the sound of waves and the wind rustling in trees. Looking up, he stares in confusion at the thick mess of foliage. A tropical forest, full of tall palms and leafy ground cover, is spread lushly above him. He knows this isn’t right, this isn’t where he should be. But he can’t remember why, can’t remember what would be right.

Hornblower turns to look behind him towards the sound of lapping waves, and gives a startled cry, confusion completely forgotten. He falls over as his weary and battered body gives out on him, and has to kick ineffectively with his legs to propel himself away from the sight to his right.

He isn’t alone on the beach. 

From the waist up, his unconscious companion looks like any sea-faring man roughly Hornblower’s age. His naked skin is weather beaten and tanned from the tropical sun, his brown hair long and messy, his arms well-muscled and hands rough. Like most sailors, his skin bears a number of pale scars, including a matching set just below his collarbone that look like someone took a pumice-stone to him. Asleep, he has a good-natured face with strong, even features. 

From the waist down, he has the tail of a fish. 

It takes Hornblower, head aching in the late afternoon sun, several minutes to move beyond that initial unbelievable assessment to a more detailed one.

While Hornblower has necessarily heard plenty of sailors’ tales of mermaids, this man looks nothing at all like the popular depiction of the myths. The mermaids forming the scrollwork and figureheads on ships, or scrawled by sailors in pubs from Portsmouth to Singapore, look simply like the top half of a woman slapped onto the tail of a fish – two disparate parts of a divided whole. This man – or so Hornblower can only think of him as – does not look at all like two incompatible halves united. He looks… well, _real_ , a practical adaptation of a foolish story.

The tanned human skin takes on a pale silver tinge at the naval, and darkens in hue to steel blue by the curve of the hip bones. Here the scales start, tiny and fine as apple seeds, and shimmering in the late afternoon sun. They are overset with an intertwining network of nearly transparent fins supported by cartilaginous spines, like the film of a leaf with its dark veins, and are currently twisted tight against the body. The fins crisscross from the hips to what on a man would be mid-thigh, tapering to delicate but sharp edges which when extended probably stretch nearly two feet. 

From the base of the fins downwards the tail slims, while the scales increase in size to roughly that of Hornblower’s thumbnail. The trunk of the tail is a good two feet longer than a man’s legs would be by the point it reaches the equivalent of ankles, and perhaps this extra length makes the overall whole somehow proper in Hornblower’s eye rather than two disparate parts. From the narrowest point at the ankle, the tail unfolds into a vast nearly-transparent fin the size of a tolerably wide writing desk but split into two mirrored droplet shapes, again set through with long spines of cartilage. 

Only when he has taken all this in – which takes several minute more – does Hornblower notice that the merman is breathing unnaturally hard with the ugly gasping sound of an asthmatic fighting tightening lungs. And that his human skin, naked and unprotected from the tropical sun, is flaking and burning. Hornblower is no fisherman, but he is sure such harsh heat is only worse for scales. He looks down towards the ocean.

They must have come ashore during a moderately high tide, but the sea has since receded to nearly its lowest point. The waves lapping up against the island’s shore are nearly fifteen yards away. The gritty island sand turns into smooth pebbles some three or four yards from Hornblower, but another four after that it becomes the rough volcanic rock that doubtless makes the base of this island. It would cut unprotected feet, certainly. 

Hornblower turns back, considering, and gives another undignified start. 

The merman is staring up at him from the sand with wide, appalled eyes. 

Hornblower scrambles backwards in the sand, and then forces himself to stop and straighten. As he watches, the merman pulls himself up sharply onto an elbow, and then gives a leaping twist. In one movement he is a good yard closer to the ocean, turning a full rotation in the air and landing with a hard thump on the sand. He repeats the lunge, throwing himself with a unique sort of rocking turn of his arms and tail, and reaches the edge of the pebbles. Here he tenses to leap again, but he is breathing hard, his chest working like a bellows while sweat runs down his face in rivers. It washes trails through the sand, giving his skin an odd tattooed look. His hair, Hornblower can now see, is tied in a messy queue by a scrap of ribbon.

“Wait,” cries Hornblower weakly, struggling to his feet, and then again more firmly. “Please – who are you?”

The merman makes one more leap, and lands with a clatter on the stones. He gives a gruff cry and skids, back hitting the rocks. Hornblower can see as he pulls himself awkwardly onto his side that there’s another long fin running nearly the length of his spine, currently folded down against the skin. Long white scars trace along either side. 

The merman seems to have exhausted his strength or his breath, or both. He lies where he has fallen, head thrown back and mouth open as he struggles to pull in air with a dry rattling sound. His eyes are wide open, staring up at the sky unseeingly. Hornblower runs forward to bend over him, casting a dark shadow down over his face.

“The sea,” he gasps, trying to raise himself onto his elbows and falling back with a clatter of stones. Hornblower stares, shocked by the voice. It is low and pained but undeniably human. And it is speaking British English. 

Hornblower squats awkwardly, wrapping skinny arms around the merman’s torso and pulling him up to drag him towards the ocean. He’s a great weight, at least as heavy as a true man would be, and can’t help by walking. Hornblower turns to pull backwards, panting hard and moving towards the sea in jerking, undignified movements that leave the long tailfin trailing over the rocks. His only consolation is that the other is certainly in no state to be noticing his pathetic performance. 

They reach the hard volcanic layer at last, and while it must be painful to the merman, Hornblower finds the footing much better than the shifting pebbles. They cover the last stretch in better time, and shortly he is backing up into the ocean. The water laps over his ankles and then calves, trying to push him off balance. He pulls further, until he is in past his knees, while his lungs burn and his back sears with the agony the weight he’s hauling. 

“Enough – stop.” The merman gives a twist and Hornblower, exhausted and pained, drops him unceremoniously and falls to sit panting in the warm water. In one quick movement the merman slips past Hornblower and into the deep water. With a flick of his tail, he disappears beneath the blue surface.

“Wait –” Hornblower, arm around his aching chest, stares out in desperation at the smooth, endless sea. He has no idea where he is, whether there is any chance of being taken off of this tiny island – whether there is any chance of _living_ on this tiny island. He has no supplies or tools, only his bare hands and the clothes on his back. Despair wells up hot and acrid as acid inside him, coating his innards until they burn. His head begins to throb again, dizzy with the exhaustion and sunstroke.

Hornblower sits for several minutes in the water, looking out at the vast emptiness and trying to catch his breath. It’s nearly silent; even the wind is dying down, waves and leaves becoming quieter and quieter. He has often felt alone in the crowd aboard ship, but this is different. This is a truly empty world.

He is just willing himself to stop sulking like a boy and stand when there is a ripple in the water some three yards ahead. A dark head breaks the surface, brown hair slickened and nearly black. Clean and properly awake now, Hornblower can judge the merman’s age more closely – probably only a couple years older than him. If mermen age like humans. 

“Please –” he says, making to stand and then thinking better of it. Hope emerges from the fierce storm of his emotions, beating down the others momentarily. “Where is this? Can I get off this island?”

The merman stares at him in silence while the waves wash up gently against Hornblower, breaking against his chest. 

“Do you understand me?” asks Hornblower after a minute, speaking more slowly now and irritated by the tinge of desperation he can hear in his own voice. The rational part of his mind is struggling to make itself heard, but it is losing to instinctive snap-responses he tries so hard to filter from his outward self.

“I understand you well enough,” answers the merman, with the kind look of an officer relieving a midshipman of the first or middle watches. “And I know the importance of those questions to you, but I have no answers.” The knowing pity burns at Hornblower like vitriol. 

“Why?” he barks, standing and wincing at the sharp pain in his temple as his blood pounds in his head. “Who are you? Why did you bring me here?” He reaches for where the sword he wears in an engagement would hang, and finds nothing but water. He feels his cheeks flush in shame at the foolish mistake, and berates himself fiercely.

“I’m as good as no one, but you can call me William. You are here because I had no mind to see an officer of His Majesty’s Navy drown while I looked on. As for this island, it’s nowhere I’m familiar with; it simply happened to be the nearest landfall.” He glances behind him towards the empty horizon. “I don’t believe it can be far from the coast – a hundred leagues, perhaps.”

“A hundred leagues,” repeats Hornblower, hollowly, sinking back down on shaky legs. He couldn’t swim one if his life depended on it. Without tools, he could never make the simplest of boats. Not even a raft.

“There’s food to be found in the trees. And even if there are no natural springs, it rains often enough that you won’t die of thirst. There’s likely to be at least some coastal traffic.”

“Have you seen any?” asks Hornblower. The merman’s face remains neutral.

“I haven’t been here before; your route is busy enough, though.”

His memory triggered like a trap snapping, Hornblower leaps up, sending a low wave rippling outwards. “The ship! Is it alright?”

William’s face darkens. “I don’t know. I saw you go over the side and caught hold of you. Keeping you above the waves was hard enough. Last I saw her she was sailing to miss the shoals. If she did, she should be fine. She would have plenty of sea room.”

Hungry, pained, exhausted and dispirited, this new uncertainty is too much for Hornblower. He simply can’t face carrying on a civil conversation any longer. The world seems to be greying at the edges, his fingers tingling oddly. “Thank you,” he mutters, straightening. He turns round and walks back to the beach, stumbling on the loose shale. William doesn’t protest.

Hornblower crosses the sand to the cover of the trees as the red sun slips down below the horizon. While the night insects begin humming, he nestles down in the rough shrubbery, and closes his eyes. He’s asleep before he has time to think.

  
***

Hornblower is woken by his stomach twisting itself into knots, begging for food. His muscles are stiff and aching, and he rolls over to see if his hammock has somehow swung into the bulkhead in the night.

There is an instant of absolute bafflement, confusion pouring thick as tar into his skull. Then his memories come back to him: the storm, the waves, the island.

The creature that saved him, with a man’s torso and a beast’s tail.

Hornblower sits up, ignoring the hunger pain and the aches, and stares out at the clear sea. Surely there was no merman – it was a figment of his exhausted, overwrought mind. A way of making sense of the impossible. Certainly his memory of yesterday evening is confused at best, a badly water-stained map with only a few points of clarity emerging here and there from the blurred ink.

A fever dream, he decides firmly as he pulls himself to his feet. The merman, the conversation, all of it surely just a fever dream. It is more than plausible, it is the only explanation, and deserves no more thought.

His shoes by now several fathoms deep, Hornblower walks on stocking feet into the underbrush, cautiously looking for food or danger. There are plenty of insects and some seabirds cawing overhead, but nothing larger. The trees are mostly tall hairy palms, with some coconut and banana trees here and there. Hornblower finds one sole papaya tree, and while its green fruit are several yards overhead, a few ripe yellow papayas lie on the ground beneath. Hornblower falls to his hands and knees, ripping the soft skin apart with greedy fingers and pulling the sweet pulp free with his teeth. He eats three before he begins to feel ill – it is the first fresh fruit he has had for more than a month. He nevertheless sucks the juice from his fingers – salt mixing with the sweet – and walks further into the forest. 

There is no trace of water, no pond or spring, just more trees whose swaying fronds reach for the sky from the tops of long, thin trunks. Hornblower comes out the other side of the forest after only a few minutes and finds the same empty blue horizon. He pulls off his stockings, rolls up his trousers and begins a walk around the tiny island’s sandy circumference.

The breeze is soft, a warm mix of salt air and the green earthy smell of the forest. Hornblower listens to the sound of leaves rustling for the first time in weeks as he pads over the sand, his eyes always fixed on the horizon. He sees nothing but endless ocean, unbroken blue water. 

With no watch, he can only estimate the time it took to circle the island as about twenty minutes. On one side he finds the sand stretching all the way to the lapping waves, while near the beach where he came ashore there is a deep tide pool encircled by dark volcanic stone, the smooth rock covered in anenomes and shellfish. He marks it in his mind as a hopeful place to forage for food.

Shaky with hunger and thirst, Hornblower sits down near the trampled underbrush marking his bed. A few fruit make a poor meal after 24 hours without food, and his throat aches for clean water. There is none on the island, and while wet fruit and coconut milk may make some manner of substitute, neither is easily accessible. He will have to wait for the frequent storms to – no.

Hornblower grimaces, twisting his fingers into his still-tense temples. That was a dream. He knows nothing about this place, its weather or distance from the coast. Thinking otherwise is simpleminded weakness. Here, with only his wits to count on for survival and escape, he must not allow sentiments like hope or wishfulness to dull them.

He has just resolved himself to austere focus when motion in the water catches his eye. 

There is a dark head there, watching him.

Hornblower stares for several seconds. Then, very deliberately, he closes his eyes and opens them. The man is still there, rising and falling gently with the waves.

Hornblower knows he isn’t mad – he survived Simmonds, and shipwreck, and a Spanish prison. Nearly drowning is not enough to break him – of that he is absolutely sure. He stands and begins walking along the beach towards the tide pool. He is nothing if not practical, and right now, using any ally he has is a practicality. In the water, the bobbing figure follows.

  
***

It’s low tide, the waves washing over the dark uneven rock that forms the base of the island. The rim of stone surrounding the large tide pool Hornblower found earlier is completely bare, although still wet from the receding waves. He walks out along it to the far side and sits, bare feet submerged in the water. The drop from the pool’s wall to the ocean floor is steep here – a good five feet Hornblower estimates, looking down through the clear water at the pale sand. Here, the merman can come in close while remaining upright.

He swims rather awkwardly, long powerful tail stretched out behind him and back arched to keep his chest and head out of the water – Hornblower supposes he doesn’t often have cause to keep his shoulders above the waves. He stops a few feet from the rock wall and straightens, tail fin fluttering to keep him steady in the gentle currents. 

Fully aware as Hornblower is now, meeting this half-man is almost more strange than it was the day before. Myths and legends are for children and fools – the lower deck rabble who believe the solstice brings squalls and remoras paralyze ships of the line. But there is a myth here, alive and breathing before his eyes, and he cannot discount that.

“You are no man,” he says incredulously, and immediately feels like a fool. 

“Nor am I,” agrees the other. “But you have the look of an officer, or did before the sea took it in her mind to give you such a thorough washing.” He speaks lightly but there is a sadness about him, a heavy sorrow Hornblower didn’t notice previously though the veil of his own despair. His grey eyes are distant, even as they watch Hornblower.

“Horatio Hornblower, lieutenant in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.” Hornblower gives an awkward bow, which to his surprise is returned by a courteous bob. He cannot help but watch the amazingly fine movement in the scaled tail – it clearly has no joints but rather a series of vertebrae – and the delicate fins that flicker soft as the pulse in a man’s throat, as they beat to keep the merman still and upright in the water. His mind is whirring, trying to work out how this creature, this man, can exist. How he breathes – through the odd scars over his collarbones? – how he can have both warm and cold blood, how he – Hornblower catches himself staring, and takes himself in hand. “I beg your pardon, I have never met – never imagined – what are you?” It is scarcely polite, but offence doesn’t seem to have been taken.

“I told you I am no man,” he says, and the sorrow is tangible now, cold and lonesome as a salt-lined ship washed up on the rocks past all hope of rescue. “But I was, once. More than a man, one of your own kind. A lieutenant, in His Majesty’s Royal Navy.”

As Hornblower listens in wonder, he hears of how a young lieutenant much like him sailed south towards the West Indies station and encountered a fierce storm. Of how the lieutenant, staring into the twenty-foot waves, saw a beautiful woman singing to him through the rain and lightning. Of how, with only her song in his ears, he didn’t hear the warning cry and washed overboard into her arms. Of the burning, boiling pain of her poisoned claws in his spine and the twisting agony of his flesh and bones rearranging themselves. 

“They have no men,” William explains, bitterly. “They are all born maids, daughters of cruel bitches and the poor sailors they take and twist into mockeries of themselves to suit their needs. I cannot believe we half-breeds live long. We have no knowledge of how to survive alone in the sea, and their affection – if you can call it that – does not last long. They drive us out to die soon enough. They are mermaids and sirens both: they save sailors from the waves only to torture and kill them.”

“Can you not reason with them?”

“They speak their own tongue between themselves; they never spoke to me. They scream like banshees if you upset them, and their claws are iron-hard and sharp as knives. They can butcher whole sharks with ease. I have not seen them since they chased me out, and I have no wish to. I have been alone for months now, and I doubt I will last much longer; I don’t have the heart for it. Perhaps it is the loneliness, or the strangeness – I spent most of my life in the Navy, but life above and below the waves is as dissimilar as on land and at sea.” He speaks in a low, listless tone. Hornblower has seen pressed men in similar straits, pining for their lives on land. Either they learn to take to ship-life, or they are thrown out by their messes and die if they are not discharged. 

William smiles suddenly, an embarrassed, self-remonstrating twitch of the lips. “I’m sorry – it is no burden of yours.” He glances at the sky, then out at the horizon. “I think it may rain soon. You should prepare.” In a neat turn he slips beneath the water and streaks away, quick as a dolphin, leaving Hornblower alone on the outcropping.

  
***

With advanced warning, Hornblower can recognize the signals of approaching rain he otherwise would have missed, the quickening breeze and the hazy sky.

He smashes the oldest-looking coconut he can find by throwing it at a rock until it breaks with a dull cracking sound. He manages to keep a nearly semi-circular slice intact, and plants it firmly in the sand, an empty bowl awaiting the rain.

Next he finds a sheltered spot on the edge of the forest below a harmless palm. He strips down fronds and branches from the underbrush and with strips of cloth from his shirt builds a small shelter, simply a mat of fronds on two raised sticks. As the clouds darken overhead, he strips off his jacket, shirt and trousers and tucks them away under cover.

The rain comes all at once, clouds splitting open as if slit by a knife. It falls cool and heavy, washing the sand and salt from his skin and hair, running into his eyes and down the sharp bridge of his nose. Hornblower tilts his head to the sky and drinks deeply. At that moment, it seems the best thing he has ever tasted.

  
***

“What will you do?” asks William that evening, as Hornblower sits at the edge of the tide pool eating small fish caught and cooked that afternoon off his knees like a grubby mid. The rain hasn’t renewed the merman as it did Hornblower; although he listens politely, his mind seems elsewhere.

“I suppose I must build a craft. I cannot wait on the hopes that a ship will pass – or that I will be able to signal it, if one does. If it isn’t far to the coast, it should be possible to make it there. Or it would be if I had any tools, though I am no hand at carpentry.”

“I was once, but I fear that is little help to you now.” He shows Hornblower his hands – they are strong as any seaman’s, but they have been smoothed by the sea and are now tipped by small tough-looking claws rather than nails. “Good for fishing, but not so fine for woodwork.”

Hornblower feels a sudden, unaccountable stab of horror. He knows it well: it is the horror he feels in his breast when he prepares for battle, the fear of being maimed, scarred, crippled. Of being left a useless pitiful wreck, unsuited for the one job he is good at. 

“How long has it been?” he asks, shoulders rounded under the weight of his sympathetic horror. If the merman notices, he shows no sign of it.

“What is the date?”

“The 6th – no, 7th, of April. The year 1800,” he adds, when William continues to wait.

“Nearly two years, then.” He shakes his head, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Two years.”

“They say mermaids shed tears of pearl.” Hornblower, realising he has spoken his thoughts aloud, albeit softly, flushes. William gives him a very flat look, but the pain in his eyes is sharp as broken glass.

“Do they? The men weep only salt.” He disappears into the orange-hued water before Hornblower can reply.

  
***

The renewed energy brought to Hornblower by the rain evaporates early the next morning. After a breakfast of bruised papaya and sandy coconut, he sets out to find wood for a raft. And discovers, immediately, that the only wood on the ground is so rotten he can bend it with his hands.

There are several trees with low branches, but at their thickest they are hardly wider than Hornblower’s thumb. The trees themselves are tall, supple and strong, and without an axe he has no hope of felling even one, never mind the dozen or so necessary for a raft. 

In the tropics, some river-dwelling tribes fashion little cockle-shell boats out of animal hide, and in the Americas the natives build narrow upright canoes out of bark. But there are no animals here large enough to skin, and the trees bark is entirely unsuitable, being either irremovable or just rough matting.

For all his training, experience and enterprise, Hornblower can conceive of absolutely no way to escape from the island without any tools.

  
***

It takes him the entire day to find the resolve to ask for something he has no right to expect. He avoids William until nearly sundown, skulking about in the trees hollowing half-rotted coconut shells to hold water and running through his words over and over in his head.

When he can stand it no more and feels he will burst if he does not make his request then and there, he hurries down to the waterfront. He is hot with his unremitting exertions and his agonies over his speech, and the cool dusk breeze does nothing to calm him. 

He finds William waiting by the shore as usual, although with the sun gone he cannot make out much of his expression. He does not try to – he knows better than to give himself time to delay. Instead, he launches straight into his request. 

“You have already given me my life, and I have no right to ask more of you. I am truly grateful for your aid, and have done nothing to repay it. But I find that without tools, I have no hope of making an escape from this island.” 

There is a moment of silence, and then: “I expected nothing in return, but your company has none the less provided me with far more than nothing, sure. As to tools, I will do what I can. There will surely be something to salvage somewhere nearby. I will see what I can find. It may take a few days.” 

The heat seeps from Hornblower all at once, leaving him cold and shaky; he crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m in your debt once more, William. Thank you.”

“I will do what I can.” With a ripple of water, he’s gone.

  
***

The breeze is always warm. Hornblower becomes used to working in just his shirt and trousers, jacket and socks tucked away safe under large leaves weighted down with stones. He has accepted that, until William returns, he has no chance of building any sort of craft. He concentrates instead on gathering food. There are several banana trees of varying heights, and he is able to break a cluster down from one of the smaller ones. There are also coconut trees, whose fruit is far too high for him to reach but which have speckled the ground below with the large brown spheres. Hornblower breaks these open with sharp stones to find the smaller fruit within, saving the outer husks for water collection. In the tide pools he catches small fish and shellfish with his hands, standing still for what feels like hours until his back and calves ache with the strain.

In the evenings, he builds fires from palm fronds and grass, and roasts the small fish in banana leaves. The meals are less than desirable, but no worse than casks of salt beef which have begun to go off and green scummy water. 

At night he sleeps under a cover of leaves, with the crickets singing in his ears.

  
***

William returns two days later.

Hornblower is waist-deep in the largest tide-pool, trying to catch an octopus the size of a green coconut when he catches sight of movement out in the ocean and whips around, heart in his throat. It is no ship, as he hoped, but rather William waving with one hand.

Hornblower climbs out of the tide-pool and enters the sea proper, wading out to meet him part way. The merman has brought a bag made of brown sacking which he offers above the waves, water pouring from the burlap.

“It’s not much, but there are no old wrecks nearby.”

Hornblower takes it with wordless haste, eager hands pulling it open immediately to expose the contents to the bright sun.

Inside the bag are a few worn glass bottles, an ancient cutlass with a rusty blade, a table knife, a hammer, and some knotted twine. Hornblower stares at the contents in utter dismay. They are nothing like what he needs to build even a plain raft. 

“Thank you,” he says stiffly, after a long moment, trying to disguise his shock. And then, voicing the thought that is never far from his thoughts, “Did you see any ships?”

“No. But I mostly travelled below the waves. As I said, there aren’t many wrecks, but there aren’t many navigational dangers, either. It may tell nothing of the traffic above.”

“I see,” says Hornblower coldly, no longer trying to hide his disappointment

  
***

With the cutlass, Hornblower is able to begin sawing at some of the younger trees which he stands a chance of felling for a raft. It takes him all afternoon to cut halfway through one with the dull blade, panting like a bellows. By the time darkness is setting in he still cannot push it down, and as he looks around he realises that the tide has come in again and he has lost his chance of octopus for dinner.

He buries the cutlass deep in the sand with a savage blow, then heads down to the shore. There’s a dark shape in the water, a few yards from the edge of the rock pool. Hornblower strides over the wet lip of the pool and drops gracelessly to squat on the outer edge. His skin is still hot and prickling with sweat, his stomach twisting against itself. William drifts closer, face watchful in the dim light.

“You said there were no wrecks where you scavenged, so no materials. Why not search for wrecks? They must be full of useful tools. A man couldn’t build an oar with that, and you know it.” He motions angrily to the sack on the beach, filled with the dregs of the ocean floor.

“Ship graveyards are dangerous. The waters are uncertain, full of shoals and unpredictable currents. If the ships are new wrecks, as they often are, they are infested with sharks and other man-eaters.”

“You were a lieutenant in His Majesty’s Navy,” counters Hornblower, anger searing like liquid glass under his skin. “My God man, were you always shy, or has it just come on you now?”

“I am no coward, sir –” begins the merman, frowning. Hornblower doesn’t let him finish. 

“Are you not, sir? Then you are no better than the creatures who tortured you. Did you even make a show of looking? Or did you just bring back the first pieces of derelict you found on the ocean floor? You know as well as I it is utterly useless. So either you are shy, or it is your intention to keep me here against my will. Am I to be your pet, your tame amusement?” The words roll smoothly from his tongue as if oiled, greased by the heat and the aching of his muscles and the emptiness of his stomach, and above all the utter _helplessness_ of his whole cursed predicament.

The merman flushes now, a pale blue that resembles faint bruising, as if he had been struck on the cheekbones. “You forget yourself,” he growls in a low, furious tone. “I would die before I saw done to any man what has been done to me – enslaved for another’s amusement. But my feeding the sharks will do you no manner of good at all. If you ask that I prove it, I will, but you will be left just as badly off as you are now.”

Hornblower simply stares, frustrated anger battling with humility towards a stalemate. The merman gives him a cold look. “No? Then I take my leave of you, sir.” With a flick of his tail, he slips beneath the clear waves, and is gone in a handful of heartbeats. 

Alone, Hornblower curses his miserable disposition, and the hopeless situation it continues to make worse. Wet, hungry and uncomfortable, he wades back to the shore, and punishes himself for his foolish temper by eating only the overripe fruit and the most distasteful-looking shellfish.

After his poor meal, he stalks back grim-faced to the half-felled tree. He continues sawing until he can no longer hold the cutlass in his blistering hands, and falls asleep with his head pillowed in the sawdust.

  
***

By the morning light, Hornblower can see that he’s not even three quarters of the way through the tree’s hard trunk. His palms, softened by an officer’s less active life, are torn open in a straight line below the fingers, with another great blister on the heel. At this rate, it will take him more than a month to fell the trees alone, never mind cutting off the tops to make even planks. And that is if the rusty cutlass stands the strain of a task it was most certainly not designed for.

Hornblower eats a light breakfast, just fruit with one cold fried fish, and walks out to the tide pool. The water is a few inches higher than the outside rim, but he sits down nonetheless. Sits, and waits.

  
***

The tide goes out, leaving the rocky edge of the tidepool bare, and comes back in to cover it again while Hornblower sits, uncomfortably aware of the sun on his shoulders and the back of his neck as he grows slowly hotter and hotter. But he has spent thousands of watches doing nothing but staring into the distance; it is no hardship to spend one watching the blue sea.

The sun is low on the horizon when he catches sight of movement beneath the water to his left. He has a shocking headache, temples pounding more violently than the beating of Roast Beef of Old England, but he doesn’t move – sits perfectly still and waits. The dark shape comes closer, slowly, and pauses before rising. 

“You are courting sunstroke,” says William at last, dispassionately.

“I owe you an apology,” replies Hornblower, who has had plenty of time to memorize the words he feels are owed. “I ought not to have spoken as I did. I let my frustration and my desperation rule my head. I humbly beg your pardon.”

The merman considers him for a moment, and then to Hornblower’s surprise, smiles faintly. “It has been a long while since anyone considered my pardon worth asking. It is given, gladly.”

“Thank you, William.” The sun is catching in his eyes, sharpening the pain in his head, and he squints against it. 

“You will be red as a boiled lobster come tomorrow.”

“I fear so.” Hornblower reaches up to press a hand against his temple, the first move he’s made in hours. Dehydrated and overheated, the small gesture is enough to make the world spin, and he slips off the rim of the tide pool into the ocean.

In a momentary panic, he kicks out and catches his ankle a painful wallop on the edge of the rocks. Then an arm is about his chest, holding him up easily above the water. “Calm down. Calm down. You won’t drown in the shallows.”

Head secure above the water, Hornblower stops striking out blindly. He finds he’s panting, and that it’s making his vision blur, badly. 

“When was the last time you drank?” enquires William, putting his free hand against Hornblower’s shoulder. “You’re hot as a boiled lobster as well.”

“This morning,” he answers, thoughtlessly. William’s swimming for both of them, towing them through the cool waters towards the beach. Hornblower can feel the brush of his fins against his naked hand; they are fine as gossamer, quivering delicately with life. William’s side, when he allows his hand to brush against it, is cool and smooth as a dolphin’s skin rather than slimy or slick as a fish’s. Perhaps it is the sunstroke, but he doesn’t find the feel it at all strange or distasteful. The smoothness of it is almost pleasant, and he can feel the strength of the muscle beneath.

“Then you’d best have some more.”

Hornblower’s trailing feet strike the sand, and he catches his weight awkwardly; standing, he finds the water is barely chest deep. William’s arm slips away and he strikes out heavily for the beach, cutting slowly through the water slow as sailcloth being dragged for swimmers. 

He climbs slowly over the beach to drain two coconut shells full of rainwater, barely pausing for breath between them, and then drops down to lie in the cool palm fronds on which he makes his bed. Burrowing under them to escape the last of the day’s heat, he falls into a deep sleep.

  
***

The next few days are hard. Hornblower binds his raw, blistering hands in layers of cool palm leaves and tree bark and continues hacking at the tough trunks. He fells his first tree towards sunset of the second day, but that’s only half the job – there is still the thick nest of leaves and coconuts at the top which needs to be removed. It turns out to be even more difficult than chopping the tree down originally; now that its full length is lying on the sand, it’s too heavy for him to lift easily but even more difficult to saw as it lays. In the end he has to dig out a half-pit under its top and cut from there, sweating away in the hot sun.

He ends each day exhausted and aching, hands bloody and stomach twisting against itself. William has taken to catching him fish – not the little half-minnows that swim in the tide pools, but real full-grown horse mackerel – which he cooks on a makeshift spit over his now-established fire pit as the sun goes down. 

When the sun is gone and the sky is bleeding from robin blue to navy, he wades out to sit on the edge of the rocks and soak his feet in the clear water. William hovers nearby, a quiet but somehow reassuring presence. He rarely speaks save when Hornblower addresses him, answering in a low, honest tone. They discuss generalities – the most efficient rigging for a ship with a skeleton crew, the tactics of Lord Nelson, the propensity of the Navy to introduce newfangled devices without proper testing. William refuses to discuss specifics, even to enumerate his past ships or battles, and Hornblower learns not to ask. As the nights go on, he begins even to become reticent about generalities, growing slowly more and more silent.

“I’m sorry,” he says one evening, suddenly, after making a vague and non-committal answer to Hornblower’s question about goose-winging. “I’m afraid I make a poor partner for conversation.”

“Not at all, sir – I appreciate your company immensely,” replies Hornblower, courteously. His disappointment had shown on his face, and he knows it. But William waves the politeness aside.

“No; it was a sad performance. I hadn’t realised – hadn’t realised just how much I still miss it, is all. Please, pay it no mind.” He straightens with a flick of his tail, water rippling gently. “On the topic of goose-winging, I once heard a man swear that...” William speaks with something like animation for a long time, that night. But for some reason, Hornblower is reminded of the forced carefree manner of a man about to be lashed.

  
***

The cutlass lasts another two days. Towards sunset of the second Hornblower is levering it roughly out of the notch with blood-slicked hands, sweat stinging his eyes, when the rusty blade simply snaps. He stumbles back, the handle still held tight in his hands while the blade remains stuck in the depths of the trunk. For a minute he stands there dumbly, the setting sun warm on his shoulders and the night insects already buzzing around his damp hair.

It must be the heat, but he cannot seem to form coherent thoughts. Everything is reduced to images and sensations, flashing red-hot through his mind: Aching arms, empty horizon, _frustration_ , one fallen tree, bloody hands, endless sea, _desperation_ , stinging skin, shallow notch, broken blade, _hopelessness._

He cannot keep doing this. Cannot, cannot, cannot. Screams it to the clear heavens: “I CANNOT!” Snarls it to the tree as he pounds his bloody fists against it: “I can’t – can’t – can’t!” Whispers it to his knees as he curls up in the undergrowth, exhausted: “I will never do it.”

Hornblower doesn’t exactly sleep. He lies in a daze as the sky darkens and the air cools slightly around him, mind unfocused. His thoughts are there, but they’re far away and without concentrating on them he can’t feel the sharpness of their edges. If he waits long enough, they’ll grow softer. 

The ocean is sapphire blue when he finally rises and stalks stiffly down to the water. He bends at the shoreline, scooping up handfuls from the tiny waves that wash up against the beach and washing his face. His shirt and jacket are tucked away under his shelter, so he wipes his face off with his elbow and waits for the moisture he missed to dry. Only when he can’t feel it anymore does he walk out across the rocks. He carries the cutlass grip in his hand.

William is there already, waiting in patient silence. Hornblower opens his mouth several times, but his wretched temper has always been hampered by an equally wretched amount of small talk, and now of all times he has absolutely nothing to say. Finally he simply puts the cutlass hilt down on the rocks beside him. “Not tonight. Please,” he begins, and finds that he has run out of words already. Words, at least, that are not “help me” or “fix this.”

He straightens, and walks back across the rocks to the shore.

  
***

The next day, there is no fish on the beach. When he goes out and calls to William, there is no answer. The ocean is empty, as far as his eye can see. 


	2. Chapter 2

Hornblower tries to maintain his drive, but that was nearly impossible before he had tools, and only slightly more possible with them. Now, truly alone and with absolutely no way of building a boat, he is helpless. 

The island hadn’t felt unbearably small before, when he had work to throw himself into. Now it seems smaller than a quarterdeck – cramped and confining, it stifles him until he feels as though he’s suffocating in the humid air. The feeling follows him wherever he goes, in the densest forest and on the beach and in the highest tree he can climb. It grows stronger as the days pass, with him as he catches minnows and knocks down papayas, as he huddles under his shelter from the brief pelting rainstorms and lies watching the stars.

At first it’s just an itch, uncomfortable but ignorable. But as the empty days drag on it spreads, creeping up over him inch by inch. Finally he can’t ignore it, can’t even tear his mind from it. It seems to be in his very skin like a nest of stinging ants burrowing into his flesh, twisting, wrapping, _shrinking_ , tighter and tighter, hotter and hotter until – _no_. 

Hornblower drags himself, gasping for breath, into the surf and deeper – out into the waves, until he is chest-deep in the water. Holding his breath he sinks to the sandy bottom, digs his hands through it and crushes his fists tightly over the loose grit. This is what it feels like to be submerged in pressure, to feel his lungs ache for air – _this is real_.

He breaks the surface with a gasp, flailing his arms to keep his balance until he makes it closer to the shore. Still breathing hard, Hornblower pulls himself up the beach, back bent like an old man. He straightens as he walks, slowly unfolding until his spine is straight again, and pushes his wet hair out of his eyes. Pulling the tangled ribbon from his queue he combs it back with his fingers and re-ties it, neatly. Hornblower marches up to the tallest papaya tree on the island, plants his feet against it, and starts climbing.

Except to sleep, he doesn’t stop working again.

  
***

Hornblower is in the centre of the forest, using what’s left of the cutlass to chip away at a good strong branch with the idea of making a primitive ax, when he hears the seabirds screaming.

The birds follow ships, but the horizon was empty not long ago, and not even a real flyer could have come within earshot since. Consequently Hornblower gives a few more strokes and puts down the cutlass where it will be easily found again before going to investigate.

About a cable’s length out there’s a flurry of white on the surface of the water, which at first glance resembles the splash caused by a cannon ball hitting the water. As Hornblower paces closer, he’s able to make out the individual birds forming the constantly-moving white mass. They’re flapping and diving and launching into flight as they vie for position, the whole time making an ungodly racket. Probably they’ve come across an injured porpoise, or a dying immature whale, or even simply turned upon a weak member of their own flock. As he watches them squabble and squawk, a larger splash goes up, and then a steel-blue fin flips awkwardly through the air before slapping the ocean surface with a resounding clap. Hornblower has only seen a fin like that once before.

He’s in the water before he’s aware of having made a decision, pounding through the surf until the weight of the water is too much, and then kicking out clumsily into the kind of ungainly paddle employed by animals unused to swimming. He moves noisily, waving and splashing and shouting in the voice he uses to reach the tops in a storm. “Hey! Get out of it! Get away! You goddamned wretched –” Hornblower isn’t a good enough swimmer to be shouting; he can barely do more than keep afloat and propel, and consequently his head sinks below the water several times. He swallows a mouthful of water and comes up hacking, but he keeps cursing the birds through his gasps. They pay no attention to him whatsoever.

He finally reaches the flock, flailing his arms and striking feathers and hard bodies. The gulls scream at him, scratching him with their sharp pinions and beaks. They stink of salt and fish and shit, a thick sickening smell that grows into a reek as he pushes into their centre. 

Hornblower can hardly see enough of the dark shadow in the water to know it’s William, just a mess of chestnut hair and the pale skin of his back. He’s a foot below the surface, but the gulls can peck and dive. Hornblower wraps his arms about William’s chest, and gets an elbow to the ribs that causes him to sink with a gasp.

Blinking in pain underwater, he catches sight of a blurred whir of movement, and a pair of mad, terrified eyes. Then he breaks the surface, gasping for breath. A moment later he feels something coarse and heavy pushed into his hands. He grabs hold of it awkwardly with one hand and William with the other, and promptly sinks again.

Head spinning, he looks down into the clear water and sees that he’s carrying a rough sack with several sturdy wooden handles protruding from the bound opening. Even in the water it’s heavy; he’s barely able to keep from being pulled down.

He treads water for a moment, facts piling atop of him fast and remorselessly. The gulls are squabbling to get past him, growing more and more frenzied. The heavy sack is weighing him down, taking everything he has to keep it afloat with him. At least one of the tools is an ax, he can tell by the curve of its handle. The water is many yards deep here, and he is no diver. William is sinking, unresponsive, in what Hornblower sees now is pink-hued water.

Hornblower drops the sack. He doesn’t bother to watch as it sinks to the ocean floor below, weighed down by the tools inside, instead catching William under the arms again.

This time William doesn’t protest, and with ugly frog-like kicks of his legs, Hornblower is able to tow him towards the island. The gulls follow; he has no free hands to strike at them with.

By the time they reach water shallow enough for Hornblower’s toes to touch the ground, he knows that William is unconscious, at the least. Panting so hard his throat burns and his mouth fills with saliva, Hornblower pulls him into water shallow enough that he can sit, and promptly collapses. He rolls William so that he lies face-up in the water, long tail resting on the sand, head and chest in Hornblower’s arms. The gulls retreat to the beach, muttering murderously to each other.

William’s eyes are closed, mouth hanging partially open. The scarred skin just above his clavicles flutters weakly; Hornblower brushes a gentle fingertip over it and feels the deliberate movement there: life. 

None of this, though, is what he first notices. What he first notices is the blood. William is surrounded by a faint haze of it, pink-hued like mist on the horizon at dawn, stretching slowly into a comet-shape in the current. Wounds stretch across his skin, the longest running from his hip to his middle ribs, while several ugly gouges have removed strips of skin. He doesn’t react to Hornblower’s shaking him, nor to pressure on the injuries. 

Hornblower’s trying desperately to think what to do – how to stop blood loss underwater, how to prevent gangrene? – when he catches sight of a shadow in the water.

The gulls aren’t the only creatures here attracted to blood. Hornblower rises as he sees the shark, lifting William with him, long tail sweeping gently through the shallow water. But the shore offers no safety – Hornblower can still remember the dry gasping rattle of William’s breath the morning after the storm. He casts his eyes piercingly over the shore, and then sees the rocky outcrop – the tide pool.

Moving quickly now through the waist-deep water, Hornblower tows his burden with him to the rocks surrounding the largest protected pool. At more than six feet deep and at least as wide, it’s easily large enough for the merman. And even at high tide its borders are never submerged more than a few inches – too high to admit dangerous predators. 

It’s difficult to scale the rock wall from the sea side with its sharp drop, especially dragging William. In the end Hornblower manages to perch himself on the edge, one leg hanging over and the other stretched out along the length of the wall. He wraps his arms under William’s, takes a deep breath, and hauls until lights start to burst behind his eyelids. 

They fall together into the pool, Hornblower bottom-most. He kicks up and grabs onto the rough edge, pulls himself to it and up above the surface at the same time. Tired and aching, he rests his head against the wet, cool rock, dully aware of William’s stuttering heartbeat below his arm. But there isn’t time to waste.

After searching the pool quickly for anything large enough to be dangerous and removing a crab, which can also serve as a later meal, Hornblower climbs out and heads for the beach.

  
***

It becomes quickly evident that bandages are not much use underwater; tight as he can knot the shredded lengths of his shirt, the blood still leaks through. What is needed is stitches, but he has none of the means for that. So he settles for the bandages, hands shaking as he struggles to pull them tight enough. His fingers ghost over the pale scales covering William’s hips, slowing momentarily as he feels their cool smoothness – very different from skin, but somehow not at all repulsive. Almost the opposite, in fact: he finds himself running his hand down over the perfect steel-blue scales wonderingly, the sleekness of the whole offset just slightly by the tiny roughness of the individual edges.

William coughs, turning his head against the rough stone wall acting as his pillow. Hornblower leaps back instinctively, heart pounding in his throat and face burning in sudden horrific embarrassment; he sinks down into the centre of the tide pool before regaining his senses and clambering up the rocky side, breathing hard. His face feels as though it has been held in the ship’s stove; he can practically feel the heat radiating from it. But William is still unconscious, chest rising slowly and shallowly and pulse only flickering faintly under his jaw. Hornblower berates himself mentally – unpardonably stupid, foolish, hedonistic – and after a deep breath goes back to finishing tying up the worst of the wounds.

  
***

The bottom of the pool is not wide enough for a man to stretch out upon, and in any case Hornblower can’t stand the strain of going in every five minutes to check if William is still breathing. He builds a rough mat of palm fronds, rude in its workmanship but thick and long, and fashions it into a bed on the gentlest slope in the tidepool. There isn’t enough of a current to interfere, and William himself lies still and lifeless once rolled onto it, only the edges of his fins fluttering gently.

Hornblower checks the wounds every few hours, irritated with himself for it – there’s absolutely nothing he can do about them, after all – but unable to stop himself. After the first few hours the blood flow slows dramatically, and while he initially worries this may mean William is close to bleeding to death, when his heart continues to beat Hornblower’s initial concern fades. 

William doesn’t wake the first day, doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch. 

Hornblower makes himself a bed at the side of the tidepool and moves out his rain shade, fearing the damage the murderous gulls might inflict in his sleep. It isn’t comfortable, but very few things in the Navy are; he’s endured far worse.

  
***

He dreams that night, flushed, heady dreams of naked flesh and slickness and the taste of salt. Smooth muscles against his hands, and steel-blue scales under his thighs. He wakes to find himself panting, twisted in a hollow in the sand on his belly, painfully hard. He takes himself in hand, teeth gritted – it takes only the memory of his palms over William’s hips to bring him off.

He lies staring at the ocean for several minutes as his breath slows and the sweat dries on his body. Eventually, he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

  
***

He spends the first day simply waiting. Every now and then he slips into the tidepool, ostensibly to check the tightness of William’s bandages or his position on the mat or his heartbeat. Really, though, he finds his eyes running over the sleek lines of William’s hips, the simple elegance of his fins. His scales are cool and smooth as rose petals when Hornblower happens to brush his fingers against them, and it’s all he can do to keep from repeating the gesture, from appreciating the perfection.

The hungry heat in his groin tells him it’s more than just appreciation. At first it brings on fits of nerves and uncertainty, but as the hours stretch he begins to find that in fact it doesn’t feel so very wrong. Out here in the middle of nowhere, they might be the only two souls in existence. One a sailor without a ship, the other a man without his humanity. They are neither of them whole, and the Navy’s prohibitions seem meaningless to two souls so similarly broken. 

He stands staring down at William’s face beneath the crystal-clear surface before eventually pulling himself up and out of the tide pool and heading into the underbrush to find his next meal.

  
***

William wakes late in the second day as the sun is setting behind the island’s trees in tones of orange and gold; the long shadows stretch out over the beach and paint the water charcoal grey. Hornblower’s sitting on the edge of the tide pool staring out at the eastern horizon – empty as always – when a sudden movement catches his eye.

He turns to see William reaching to pull himself up on the rocky side of the tidepool, like a man raising himself from his hammock. His eyes meet Hornblower’s and he stills, staring. Then, slowly, he looks down at his battered form. 

For all Hornblower’s attempts, the bandages are loose at the edges, moving back and forth with the tidepool’s gentle currents like an anemone’s tentacles. The pink tint has faded after two days in salt water, and as Hornblower watches in surprise William unpeels one length of rent cotton to show that the patch of missing skin below is already well-scabbed and healing healthily. 

William gives a gentle sweep of his tail and rises to float with his head and shoulders above the water. Awake now he looks tired and pained, and Hornblower can see his face is clawed as if with lack of sleep. 

“I must owe you my life,” says William, grittily. 

“Hardly that. And in any case the debt was mine to pay.” His eyes run down William’s form, and he forces himself to drag them up again as they drift below the naval. “Do you find yourself recovered?”

William gives a weak smile. “It will take me a little time to recover fully, but I feel something like myself again. How much time has passed?”

“Nearly two days. If you’re hungry there’s papaya and coconut,” he adds belatedly.

“I don’t believe I could stomach anything; perhaps later.” His eyes droop shut, and he shakes his head. “I think I must rest some more.” His fins are beating unevenly, shoulders slipping below the water as he struggles to keep himself upright.

“Then do so. You will be safe here tonight – and for as many days and nights as you need.”

“Thank you.” William slides under the water, dropping down onto the mat and closing his eyes. 

Hornblower watches him until the sun sets and the twilight begins turning to inky darkness. Then he stands and returns carefully to shore and his own bed.

  
***

He tends to William at least as tenderly as the merman cared for him, bringing him the choicest offerings of fruit and standing for hours in the sandy water on the other side of the island to finally spear a single fish with a branch custom-carved for the purpose. William eats it raw, turning away from Hornblower while he eats, and Hornblower has heart enough to leave him alone to devour the flesh with teeth and claws.

The sodden cloths binding William’s chest become more irksome than useful by the end of the third day. Hornblower slides down into the tidepool to use his clever fingers to unknot them; William is loth to slice them clean away – cloth is a rare and needed commodity on the island. Hornblower’s fingers brush against the smooth lines of the merman’s ribs as he works; William’s eyes slide closed, sun-browned cheeks growing browner.

  
***

By the fourth day in the water, the fronds Hornblower wove together to serve as a mattress are truly beginning to decay, pieces ripping free more easily and the remaining whole becoming slicker and more compressed. It will soon be closer in texture to seaweed than anything else, and even in the water it’s beginning to develop a smell. William’s almost well enough not to need it, though, and Hornblower has held off on creating a new one with that awareness in mind.

He’s kneeling beside the thing, too close really, bringing William half a coconut, when his weight shifts. His knee slips over onto the mat and promptly skids violently forwards, throwing him on top of William. 

It’s a startling transition – he’s suddenly flat on his face, half in the water, straddling another man – or nearly. It takes Hornblower’s mind a moment to catch up with what’s happened. Unfortunately, his body adapts considerably faster, his prick hardening painfully fast. He feels himself flushing red, and then even redder in response, and tries to raise himself up. His knees and elbows are now on the mat though, and he struggles to gain purchase. 

Beneath him William is breathing hard, eyes dark, and the first glance he can bring himself to take reads this as outrage, completely understandably. The second, closer, look reads it as something else altogether, and Hornblower pauses. His pulse is pounding in his groin, desire curling thick and heavy in his stomach – it has been months and months and he is aching for this. 

“Do you –” he grits out, unable to move – once he does, he won’t be able to stop, and he knows it. 

“Please,” groans William, and that is enough. He’s stripped himself of his trousers in seconds, straddling William with bare thighs, stroking his cock against the smooth scales and silken fins. There’s a hardness buried beneath the overlapped fins in the centre of the tail not far beneath the navel, and when Hornblower presses it William shudders and arches against him. Hornblower runs one hand down to trace the fins, and finds he can push them aside to release William’s cock, long and dolphin-grey tipped with a blush of pink. William gasps against his ear, body bucking against his hand.

There is no restraint and very little grace to the act. Hornblower’s feet find purchase against the smooth surface towards the bottom of the tidepool’s wall and he crushes William against the volcanic rock, rubbing himself with heated frenzy against the wonderfully smooth scales. The muscle beneath them is strong and firm, William sliding beneath him with powerful strokes of his tail that set them both panting. Hornblower digs his long fingers into William’s back on either side of the delicate fin and grunts as the waves of pleasure sear through him. 

The long, gossamer fin of William’s tail brushes against his angle; there’s something terribly erotic about it and his back arches in a sudden burning arc. Beneath him William groans, his hands shifting lower from Hornblower’s hips to knead his knuckles into Hornblower’s buttocks, fingers curled inwards to avoid cutting Hornblower with his tiny sharp claws. Hornblower feels himself growing close as William’s fingers pull him apart, the knuckle of one hand edging in between his cheeks to brush over his entrance. 

Hornblower comes in a rough, jerking rhythm, leaning back to increase the friction. William sucks in a gulping breath, face tight with the promise of ecstasy, and just as Hornblower’s starting to still bucks up against him with a cry. 

Afterwards Hornblower fishes out his trousers, pulls himself out of the pool, and goes to dry them in the trees, hotly aware of William’s eyes on his naked form. It’s enough to make him begin to harden again. 

It’s not the last time he enters the pool.

  
***

William returns eventually to the open water and comes back again almost immediately with the sack he brought from his travels. As Hornblower takes it he looks inside – it contains an ax, a long-handled mallet, a file, a bore, and a great coil of thin but sturdy cord.

“Where on earth did you get it from?” asks Hornblower, staring down at the wealth of supplies in shock. 

“There’s more than whales buried in the depths of the ocean,” says William with a little smile, but there’s an edge to his tone. They both know where he got them – from the shipwrecks where the man-eaters swim. 

“I cannot thank you enough. Nor begin to repay you,” states Hornblower earnestly.

William gives a little shrug. “I ask for nothing.” In the silence between them, Hornblower wonders what it is he would ask if he could.

  
***

With the ax, Hornblower is able to fell, clean and split several trees in a day. He works the whole of the day, coming down to the tidepool when the sun is low in the sky and he’s covered in sweat and sawdust, starting a fire and cooking whatever fish William has brought for his dinner.

Sometimes at night they talk as they used to, Hornblower perched on the edge of the pool and William close beside him. 

Sometimes they slip into the tidepool and let their bodies speak for them.

  
***

By far the most expedient vessel to construct would of course have been a crude raft. But there isn’t enough cord, nor any canvas, rendering a sail impossible. Hornblower therefore chooses to design and build what seems next-best – a small boat resembling the ugly offspring of a punt and a canoe, complete with oars. It takes him, he estimates, three times as long as a raft would have. He planes down the boards for the narrow front, fits together the boards, and carefully packs the space between them with rough coconut hair in place of oakum.

William watches the progress with a critical eye; Hornblower has no doubt he is the better natural seaman, and from the way he directs Hornblower’s efforts it is clear the work would have been finished far sooner and with far better workmanship had he been the one doing the building. 

“I feel pitiful as a midshipman on his first voyage – even more so, for some of them are raised to the task,” Hornblower confesses one evening, his raw hands resting on his knees to keep them out of the stinging salt water.

“It would be a rare mid who could achieve all that you have,” replied William, looking to the nearly-completed boat.

“All I have achieved I owe to you.” Hornblower lets his breath out in a slow sigh, staring out at the dusky horizon. “Will you not return with me?” he asks, softly.

“To be toured from circus to circus? No. There is no place left for me. Not on land, nor in the sea.”

Hornblower frowns. “Is there no chance that those who made you could unmake you?”

“I have no reason to believe so – they turned me from their villages with rage and violence. Returning could only mean death.”

“But –”

“Please,” breaks in William, quietly but with intensity. “It doesn’t matter. It is over – done with. I’ve ceased to dwell – ceased to _wish_. I have no desire to return to such things.”

Hornblower nods slowly. “Very well,” he acquiesces. “As you will.”

  
***

Hornblower fills the little craft with as much fruit as he can gather and with empty coconuts brimming with fresh water. It’s enough to last him four or five days – longer if he goes hungry.

The evening that he loads the boat, he and William stay together in silence, two lieutenants keeping the watch. Eventually he slips into the sea and William comes to him, pressing their bodies tight and taking what solace and pleasure they can from one another. This is not love, Hornblower tells himself, simply need. Give and take.

“Will you come with me?” he asks William, after. “For a while?”

“Until you reach the shore,” answers William, grey eyes distant.

  
***

Ironically, the hardest part of the journey is setting out. Hornblower built the boat just at the high tide mark, and had always planned to dig a canal to aid its passage down the shore; he hadn’t realised the difficulty of creating a canal with only an axe and a mallet. The tide has turned and nearly receded before he finally manages to draw water under enough of the boat to float it out into the shallows.

It sits slightly lop-sided in the water, papayas rolling about in the bottom. William eyes it critically, but keeps his thoughts to himself. Hornblower steps gingerly in, sitting down quickly when it begins to roll, and finds that it stills quickly. 

“’Tis no captain’s gig, certain,” comments William as Hornblower rows carefully out into the water. Two feet, four, six, twelve, then the sandy bottom is gone from sight and the water below is pure blue. He looks back at the island, sees its almost homely shape from the sea for the first time. 

“You will not miss it, I think,” says William, swimming easily alongside. He cuts through the water on his side, head raised above the gentle waves. Here, in motion, he looks somehow even more right than before – a form designed for swift, sleek movement. His tail curves through the clear water like a porpoise’s, its powerful beats propelling him forward. 

Hornblower shades his eyes, looking back at the smooth beach and the already-crumbling canal. “It wasn’t all misfortune,” he says, softly.

He rounds the island to head east towards the continent, the sun shining bright overhead.

  
***

It’s William who sees it first – he must have prodigious fine eyesight, Hornblower thinks, peering at the horizon. He sees only a tiny dark blob, but William claims to see sails, a tall ship sailing for them.

“Can you make out her flag?” asks Hornblower, resting his oars on the boat’s sides. His arms are aching from rowing, back bent with exhaustion. 

William smiles. “It is much too far out for that. But it has not the squat look of a Spaniard, nor the low-slung nature of the Portuguese.”

“English. Or French,” suggests Hornblower; William gives no answer. It’s obvious enough.

After some little while even Hornblower can make out the sails. It becomes evident that he is sitting in the middle of its course – a triumph if it is a British ship, a disaster if it is the French.

“I might tow you some ways, if needed,” suggests William somberly, as they wait.

Hornblower frowns. “And risk capture yourself?”

“Not unless they plan to dredge the whole of the ocean for me. I am safe enough. You…” He cants his head in silent concern. 

Together they float like two tiny pieces of flotsam in the wide ocean, bobbing up and down with the waves. Waiting. Hornblower strains his eyes until they sting, then water from the bright sunlight. And still they wait, for a clear enough glimpse of her rigging, of the men in her tops, of her colours. It’s a ship of the line – a frigate, rigged neatly and clipping along despite her heavy form. 

It’s only when the ship is nearly within hailing distance that they can at last see her flag flying slyly behind her: the Union Jack.

Hornblower blinks – for a moment, he fears his eyes may be deceiving him, that his hopes have played his senses for fools. But no, the red cross on the white sea is bold, blue and red picked out brightly in the upper corner.

He is found.

For a long moment he stares up at the approaching ship; already he can spot the crew coming to one side, working to lower a launch. He waves, pulling his carefully-folded coat from the bottom of the boat and donning it. 

“William – all that you’ve done – all that you’ve been, I…” Hornblower turns away from the ship to address his companion. He does not have the words for this speech of gratitude, and his tongue tangles itself in his crude attempts.

William is low in the water, the waves riding up over his chin. His grey eyes are transfixed by the ship. Hornblower has seen elderly sailors with the same look in their eyes, sitting on the dockside staring into the harbour at the anchored ships. Sea longing. “Do you really believe that somehow, somewhere, a way might be found…” his mouth slides shut and he shakes his head, tearing his eyes from the beautiful sight of the ship cutting through the blue water. “This is goodbye, then,” he finishes, gruffly. “I suppose I must find my own way from here. If one exists.”

“William,” begins Hornblower, throat suddenly tight.

“I wish,” breaks in William, roughly, “I wish that we might meet again. As we were intended to. Perhaps… perhaps it is the one wish I might hold on to.”

And then without a wave, without even a ripple, William is gone. Disappeared into the dark depths, and however long Hornblower searches, he can’t see the slightest hint of his shadow. 

Hornblower sits alone in the tiny craft watching as the launch rows nearer, a midshipman at the tiller trying to assess him. Hornblower turns away from the empty sea, and faces the oncoming vessel. 

TO BE CONCLUDED


	3. Chapter 3

Two Years Later

The _Renown_ is at anchor in the Hamoaze when Hornblower hears that a new lieutenant is being assigned. His name and the date of his commission rest with the Captain, and no one dares ask him to enlighten the wardroom with their new officer’s particulars. Hornblower is informed only that he will be coming aboard during the noon watch – Hornblower’s watch.

He is as such standing on the deck when the launch is sighted; the sideboys hurry out just in time as the lieutenant climbs aboard, the sun at his back blinding Hornblower who stands to meet him as he comes up the side. Hornblower has an impression of height and strength, a long body and a queue of dark brown hair. 

Then he’s stepping gracefully onto the deck, his self-possession and ease an envy to Hornblower.

“Lieutenant William Bush,” he says in a soft, familiar voice, proffering a hand to shake. Hornblower stands transfixed before him, staring into sparkling grey eyes and a wide, joyful smile.

“Hornblower,” he chokes out, and presses William’s hand.

END


End file.
